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CHARLES SUMNER. 



A EULOGY 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

f 401LfY Mi SOOIlf IIS 

OF 

KALAMAZOO COLLEGE, 

BY HON. CHAS. S. MAY. 

JUNE 16, 1874. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETIES. 



KALAMAZOO : 
DAILY telegraph" PRINTING HOUSE, 
1874. 



CHARLES SUMNER. 



A EULOGY 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

1401 Lf f Mi iOOllf Hi 

OF 

KALAMAZOO COLLEGE, 

BY HON. CHAS. S. MAY. 

JUNE 16, 1874. 



PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETIES. 



KALAMAZOO : 
DAILY TELEGRAPH" PRINTING HOUSE, 
1874.. 



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" Casting my eyes back no further than the fourth of July of the last year, when you set all the 
vipers of Alecto hissing, by proclaiming the Christian law of Universal Peace and Love, and then, 
casting them forward, perhaps not much further, but beyond my own allotted time, I see you have a 
mission to perform. I look from Pisgah to the Promised Land, -you must enter upon it." — John 
Quincy Adams, 1846. 

" I feol bound to say that the honorable Senator from Massachusetts has, so far as his own per- 
sonal fame and reputation are concerned, done enough, by the effort he has made here to-day, to place 
himself side by side with the first orators of antiquity, and as far ahead of any living American oratoi 
as freedom is ahead of slavery. I believe lie has founded a new era to-day in the history of the poli_ 
tics and of the eloquence of the country ; and that, in future generations, the young men of this 
nation will be stimulated to effort by the record of what an American Senator has this day done, to 
which all the appeals drawn from ancient history would be entirely inadequate" — Son John P. Hale 
in U. S. Senate, after Mr. Sumner's speech entitled, " Freedom National— Slavery Sectional." August 
27,1851. 

•- In an age of venalty and of reckless calumny, no man ever doubted the purity of his motives 
and the singleness of his aims ; and if the august title of statesman has been desei ved by any Ameri- 
can of his age, he is that American." — Horace Greeley. 

" We have in our possession many of Mr. Sumner's speeches, and we confess that for depth and 
accuracy of thought, for fullness of historical information, and for a species of gigantic morality 
which treads sophistry under foot, and rushes at once to the right conclusion, we know not a single 
orator, speaking the English tongue, who ranks as his superior.'. — Edinburgh Journal. 

" Mr. Sumner's large ability, his careful education, his industry, his early dedication to public 
afiairs, his power of exhaustive statement, and his pure character, — qualities rarely combined in one 
man, — have been the strength and pride of the Republic." — Rdph Waldo Emerson. 

" One of those powerful intellects and noble hearts that hava shown so brightly in our sister 
country, in the Senate of the United States. What noble e.oquence ! Garry his words, Sir, by the 
vehicle of your almost universal paper (London Times) to the press of every country and to the heart 
of every human being — man, woman or child— who has ever read the divine rule — 'Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do unto you, do ye even so them."— iorcZ Shaftesbury. 






EULOGY. 



Mh. President, Ladies and Gentlemex: 

It has been truly said that the contemplation of a great char- 
acter is always an interesting and instructive work. Mankind are 
taught better by example than by precept, and great lives are the 
best teachers of great virtues. It is the mission of great men to 
quicken and exalt the coimnon life of humanity by showing the al- 
most divine possibilities of our natvire, and God sends such men into 
the world when needed to save nations and to hold up exalted mor- 
al standards. They do uot appear in regular order or in unbroken 
succession. Sometimes they come singly, sometimes in'royal com- 
panies. Nor do all teach the same lesson or perform the same work. 
Some stand for religion, some for patriotism, some for heroism. 
Still other lofty lives, lifted above the common level, stand for warn- 
ing. Not all eminence is the eminence of virtue. History has its fiery 
meteors and baleful comets as well as its fixed stars and orderly 
planets. The former blind by their brilliancy or awe by their mys- 
tery ; the latter shine ever on in the serene depths with steady and 
invigorating light, and so teach mankind the eternal verities. And 
over all God watches and rules for the good of men. 

You have set apart this occasion for contemplation of the life 
and character of a great man and you have asked me to pronounce 
his eulogy. It is a theme most fit to engage your attention. Charles 
SuMi^ER was not only an illustrious statesman and orator, but he was 
also a distinguished scholar. I know of no name in all our annals 
so well calculated to inspire the enthusiasm of young men at col- 
lege or to stand for their model as his Through this shining gate- 
way of knowledge he passed in his ardent youth ; up the rugged 
steeps upon which your feet have entered he went with proud and 



conquering step, and he stands now yonder, on the immortal 
heights, forever beckoning you onward and upward. 

Nothing could be more fit therefore, than that you should 
mark his name for honor and drink deep of the inspiration of his 
life. And for what is not fit in him who is to speak upon such a 
theme, I can only plead that Charles Sumner was my ideal states- 
man; that from the days of my boyhood he has been my bright 
particular star among our public men, commanding always, more 
than any other, my admiration, my confidence, and my profoundest 
esteem. I have greatly honored other noble men and leaders in the 
struggles of our later history, but not with such honor and admira- 
tion as were called forth by the noble Senator from my native State, 
who ever seemed to me to stand forth on the field of confiict like 
the chivalrous knight of France, without fear and without re- 
proach. 

To youthen, students and others connected with these societies 
and with this institution of learn ing, and to my fellow citizens here 
assembled, let me speak of Charles Sumner. 'Ihe first spontane- 
ous utterances of grief and lament for his loss which filled all the 
land have ceased; the funeral pageants, so grand and impressive, 
have passed; the noble old Commonwealth, like a proud and sor- 
rowing mother, has tenderly laid the ashes of her great son in her 
Westminster Abbey, where are gathered so many of the great and 
good, and the flowers of the opening summer bloom upon his grave 
in the beautiful Mount Auburn. In the calm which has come after 
the first burst of sorrow has been spent, we may now contemplate 
that great life in the light in which men will hereafter view it, and 
in which it will take its permanent place in history. I know it is 
the common fault of eulogy that it is too sweeping and indiscrim- 
inate ; that it sees no defects or blemishes but only virtues in its 
subjects. But eulogy, like history, should be truthful. It should 
not make defects where there are none, and if the public and pri- 
vate life of CfiARLES Sumner was stainless and spotless, let me paint 
him as he was. 

MR. SUMNER'S EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION — HIS PREPARATION FOR 
STATESMANSHIP. 

Charles Sumner had a most ample preparation for the career 



of statesmanship. Unlike so many of our public men who have 
achieved eminence, he was born to fortune and to large advantages 
of education. His native city was the one, of all others on the 
continent, most noted for intellectual culture and historic interest, 
and he was early admitted to all the opportunities of its famous in- 
stitutions of literature and law. Its very streets were consecrated 
to patriotism and learning. It had been the theatre of some of the 
earliest and most thrilling events in the great drama of the revolu- 
tion, and many of its buildings still bore the scars of the conflict. 
Bunker Hill and FanteuJ Hall were there, the memory of Warren 
was a near and daily presence, and John Adams and other great 
leaders of the Revolution still lingered upon the scene, their ven- 
erable forms familiar upon the streets. 

In the midst of such scenes and opportunities, the impressible 
youth of SuMN^EB was passed. How he improved these rich advan- 
tages the world already knows. He was early enrolled a student 
within the classic walls of Harvard, where he pursued his studies 
with enthusiastic ardor, soon evincing a peculiar love for those 
fields of culture which lay in the direction of his great life-work. 
From the college he passed to the law school, where his fine prom- 
ise soon attracted the attention and secured the friendship of that 
eminent jurist, Judge Story, the memory of whose own great learn- 
ing and ability, and vast judicial labors has been revived in the 
minds of his countrymen by the death of his illustrious pupil. 
When called to Washington by his duties upon the bench of the 
Supreme Court, Judge Story recommended young Si-MN'er to fill 
his place as law lecturer in the institution, which he did with 
marked success, and afterwards, declining a permanent chair in the 
law school and the still more flattering offer of a professorship in 
the college, he spent several years in general and wide reading of 
law and literature and in travel and study in Europe. Returning 
to Boston he commenced the practice of his pi'ofession under the 
most flattering auspices. 

MR. SUMXKR AS A LAWYER. 

But he was not destined to run the career of the mere lawyer, 
even in the higher walks of the profession. He had mastered the 
noble science of the law as a part of general literature; he had 



given special attention to it in its relation to government and in 
its wider aspects as affecting the wellfare of races and of nations; 
in short, he had imbued his mind with its history and its philoso- 
phy. While this was noble study and acquisition for a lawyer, it 
was still better for the future statesman. It was better prepara- 
tion for statesmanship than for practice in the courts. True, Mr. 
Sumner did, for more than ten years pursue the profession, argu- 
ing cases and notably filling the office of legal reporter in the Dis- 
trict Court of the United States, over which Judge Story presided 
and editing, meanwhile, with great research and ability, a 
series of English reports, receiving from Judge Story in the mean- 
time the high compliment that he was, at the beginning of his pro- 
fessional career, well fitted in legal learning to occupy a seat on the 
bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. But he never met 
the rougher experiences, the severe and so uetimes rude encounters 
of the bar like so many eminent lawyers, and like those who achieve 
success in the profession, especially at the West. In this techni- 
cal and practical sense Mr. Sumner was not distinguished at the 
bar. Indeed it is deubtful if he ever would have made a success- 
ful jury lawyer. His mind had more breadth and strength than 
acuteness, his temperament was not electric and his great learning 
and habits of generalization would have made him unwieldy before 
a jury. Besides this his moral purposes were more suited to lofty 
themes than to the questions of private dispute with which the 
mere jury advocate has to deal. 

But happily, he did not need to settle these questions by actual 
experience His private, inherited fortune placed him above tha 
pecuniary want which has been the hard but powerful stimulus of 
so many noble minds. He did not, like Erskine, that foremost and 
greatest of advocates, feel dependant offspring tugging at his law- 
yer's gown for bread, but he was left free to pursue congenial 
studies and to follow the natural bent of his mind. Thus saved 
from sinking the man in the lawyer and repressing noble desires 
from base necessities, with learning so ample and profound, with a 
fine, and manly presence and an eloquence at once polished, grace- 
ful and connnanding, he was a public man even before he was 
called to fill public station ; a man well and carefully fitted for the 
service of the State when she should need him. And so, when in 



>< 



EULOGY. 7 

1845. after a succession of masterly addresses, he pronounced be- 
fore the corporation of his native city that great oration on " The 
True Grandeur of Nations ;" an oration which filled the country 
with admiration and drew answering plaudits from across the At- 
lantic, all the world saw that Masachusetts had a noble scholar 
and orator, with the highest graces of person, mind and character, 
with lofty aims and principles, full armed and equipped, and 
ready to obey her call to enter the arena of statesmanship and 
bear aloft her traditional standard. 

HIS ELECTIOiN" TO THE SENATE. 

The summons soon came. In the Spring of 1851, by a fortu- 
nate combination of parties in the Legislature, building wiser than 
they knew, he was elected to the Senate of the United States 
The office had come unsought, though not unwelcome. During 
the long struggle at the State House, which lasted for months and 
atti\aeted the attention of the whole country, he had daily passed 
to and from his office, but had never once looked in upon the con- 
test, nor spoken to a single member upon the subject of the elec- 
tion. In vain over-anxious and well-meaning friends besought him 
to do this. He stood firm, and no word of importunity or impa- 
tience escaped him. And when at last the position was his, it had 
come without solicitation and without pledges. It is doubtful if a 
United States Senator has ever since been elected in that way ; 
but that was the fashion in the early days of the Republic, before 
the evil days came upon us, and before the public service had be- 
come demoralized. The office used to seek the man, and not the 
man the office. 

CONDITIO ><r OF PARTIES AT HIS ENTRANCE UPON PUBLIC LIFE. 

Charles Sumner was now forty years of age and in the first 
full strength of his intellectual manhood. He had appeared upon 
the national scene at an important conjuncture of public affairs. 
There were evidences on every hand of an approaching change in 
public sentiment and in the control of political parties. His owu 
election had, indeed, been one of the most ominous portents of the 
coming revolution. The slavery question had entered the field of 
political action, and the old parties had already begun to be dashed 
to pieces upon that unyielding rock. The Whig party which had 



carried the covin try for Harrison in 1840, been defeated by its ad- 
versary in 1844, though led by Henry Clay, and again successful 
with Gen. Taylor in 1848, was the first to show signs of disintegra- 
tion. The leaven of anti-slavery had largely entered this organiz- 
ation, especially in New England; but an attempt had been made in 
the party to suppress these anti-slavery tendencies, and this effort 
had the weight and sanction of the name and leadership of Daniel 
Webster, the great Whig orator and statesman. 

The oj)en rupture came in 1848, when the then immediate ques- 
tion of the prohibition of slavery in the new territories acquired 
in the Mexican war divided the party and led to the formation of 
what was called, with felicitous propriety, the "Free Soil party ;" an 
organization composed of the seceding anti-slavery Whigs, of inde- 
pendent Democrats, and largely reinforced by the members of the 
"Liberty party," the pioneers of practical anti-slavery, an organiz- 
ation which had polled about seven thousand votes for Jas. G. Bir- 
nej for President in 1840 and nearly seventy thousand for the 
same candidate in 1844. Charles Sumner had, after vainly strug- 
gling to Jaring the AVhig party of Massachusetts up to the anti- 
slavery standard, joined the new Free Soil party. It carried no 
State for Van Buren and Adams in 1848, but it polled more than a 
third of a million votes, and it was the forerunner of the great Re- 
publican party which was formed six years later, and which carried 
the country for Abraham Lincoln in 1860. 

MR. SUMNER AN ANTI-SLAVERY MAN — HIS WATCHWORD. 

Charles Sumner had long been an anti-slavery man. With rare 
fidelity to conviction and to truth he had turned his back upon all 
apparent self-interest, upon all the professional and political pros- 
pects so inviting to a talented and ambitious young man, had at the 
same time resisted the still stronger blandishments and menaces of 
his aristocratic social surroundings, freely dedicating himself to 
the cause of the poor and oppressed, and braving the social and 
political ostracism of the rich and the powerful. But though an 
anti-slavery man, he believed in political action. Garrison, on the 
contrary, had taken the ground of disunion, and for his motto in 
the struggle, "77<e Constitution is a league with death and aeooe- 
nant with hell." Charles Sumner took for his watchword, "Free- 



EULOGY. 9 

ooM Nation'Al — Slavery Sectional," and kept that lofty politi- 
cal truth upon his banner until the battle was over. He believed 
and insisted that there was power enough under the Constitution 
to resist the spread of slavery and to bring back the Government 
to the anti-slavery ground held by the founders and early states- 
men of the Republic. 

AciLAN^CEAT MR. -^UMJSTER'S CAREER IN THE SEISTATE — HIS ASSOCI- 
ATES AND LABORS. 

Of Mr. Sum.vEr's career in the Senate I shall not speak in de- 
tail, nor follow further his life in chronological order. His history 
since his entrance into publ c life has been a part of the history of 
the nation in its most important and tragic epoch ; he has played 
his part in a high place and in the sight of all his countrymen, and 
if there were any need that the facts and incidents of his Senato- 
rial career should be recounted, it has already been amply and suffi- 
ciently done in the thousand eulogies of press and tongue since his 
death. His early history was less familiar, and seemed a fitting 
and necessary introduction to a proper analysis of his public char- 
acter. 

Let me pass on, therefore, with only a glance at Mr. Sumner's 
career in the Senate from that first day of December, 1851, when 
he took his seat in that historic chamber as the successor of Dan- 
iel Webster, the very day on which Henry Clay, the great Com- 
moner of America, spoke his last word and left it forever, until the 
10th day of March, 1874, when he, also, weary and worn with pain 
and disease, though not yet broken by age, hia gray locks illustri- 
ous with service to his country and mankind, bade a pathetic 
though unconscious adieu to the great hall and went home to die. 
When he sat down in that Senate of 1851, with Cass, and Seward 
and Douglas for his associates, slavery and compromise ruled su- 
preme. The senatoinal seats wei'e filled with haughty slave mas- 
ters from the south and submissive politicians from the north, 
with two men only in the whole body who fully sympathized with 
him in his anti-slavery position and stood with him in that appar- 
ently forlorn hope of freedom, — the bold and ready John P. Hale, 
and Salmon P. Chase, afterwards the great Secretary and Chief 
Justice. Seward, it is true, was anti-slavery, but he was a Whig, 
and he had not yet broken with his party at the South. 



10 EULOGY. 

In that body of slave-holders and slavery-supporters, Sumner 
received no political or social recognition. He was assigned no 
place on the Committees, and when in the summer of 1852 he raised 
his voice for the first time in that splendid and memorable speech 
against the Fugitive Slave Law, he met the scornful and defiant 
glances of an enraged Senate. Other great speeches succeeded, 
ai'raigning Slavery at the bar of the public judgment and conscience . 
Then followed the murderous assault of Brooks, which planted 
physical, nei-vous torture in his frame and shortened his life. i>y- 
and-by came the war, and then, as the haughty representatives of 
slavery retired, Sumner for the first time found himself with the 
majority and was entrusted with the practical direction of meas- 
ures and policies. How he filled that important chairmanship which 
was then given him, until within recent years he was dismissed 
from it under circumstances of honor to him but of everlasting 
shame to those who did it. all the world knows. And all the while 
he was true to Freedom and the Union, never losing heart or hope. 
Finally, at the last, when the war liad long been over and when the 
great work of reconstruction was finished, there came that separa- 
tion from the administration of his party and from old political and 
personal friends, which tried anew his courage, and furnished the 
last severe test of his absolute obedience to his convictions of duty. 

MR. SUMNER AS A STATESMAN — PECULIARITIES IN HIS CAREER. 

In considering Charles Sumner as a statesman, we are met at 
the outset by this striking peculiarity in his career : It was passed 
in the discharge of the duties of a single office, that of Senator from 
Massachusetts in the Congress of the United States. In this office, 
which has been filled by so many hundreds of undistinguished men 
since the foundation of the government, he performed his work and 
won his great fame. The man in our history who comes nearest to 
him in this respect is Thomas H. Penton, and he fails to furnish a 
parallel, for he had been a member of the other house of Congress. 
Most of our national statesmen of wide fame have filled different 
stations in the public service, and have had large opportunities and 
experiences. John Quincy Adams, whom Sumner resembled in 
scholarship and integrity, filled almost the entire round of the chief 
offices under the government. Henry Clay, also, had a wide and 
diversified experience. 



EULOGY. 11 

Still another peculiarity is found in the fact that Sumner en- 
tered public life at the comparatively mature age of forty, and 
finished his career at sixty-three, an age which is not considered 
old among statesmen. Here, also, he differs from most eminent 
statesmen in this and other countries. William Pitt, the younger, 
entered Parliament at twenty-one ; Gladstone at twenty-three ; 
John Quincy Adams began his public career at twenty-seven ; 
Henry Clay at twenty-nine ; John C. Calhoun at twenty-eight, and 
Daniel Webster at thirty-two. 

Charles Sumner, therefore, was not fortunate in large oppor- 
tunities, and his career, as we have seen, was not among the long- 
est. Only was he felicitous in being privileged to act his part in 
our grand and stirring times. Here he had an opportunity worthy 
of his mature preparation and his commanding talents, and he im- 
proved it with sublime fidelity and courage. His is still another 
notable instance of that divine selection of men to serve and save 
great causes and interests at supreme moments and in national 
crises. 

THE COLOSSAL POWER OP SLAVERY WHICH HE ATTACKED. 

If we approach now to a view of the essential character of 
Mr. Sumnek's work as a statesman, we shall see that it was his 
mission to lead in the great effort for national regeneration; in 
lifting the nation up from slavery to freedom, and thus in serving 
it and saving it in the best and highest sense. We had this great 
evil of slavery in our political system, and from being at first an 
unfortunate exception it had come to be the rule in the adminis- 
tration of the government and in the general course of public 
opinion. It swayed and dominated alike over church and state, 
over pulpit and caucus. It laid its hand on the two great political 
parties of the country, and they made haste to do its bidding. 
Statesmen bowed their heads in the dust before it and trembled at 
its slightest fi'own. Its subtle and baleful influence permeated all 
public opinion and penetrated to every avenue and corner of 
society. All organizations of men, of whatever name or purpose, 
yielded unquestioning obedience to its lordly behests. Free speech 
was cowed into silence or pursued to martyrdom. The very 
springs and fountains of the popular thought and conscience were 



12 EULOGY. 

poisoned and corrupted. Nor did the sacred altars of religion 
escape the fearful contamination. Strange as it may seem now, 
even the churches of the land were made to uphold slavery, and 
the ghastly and blasphemous parodox was exhibited of defending 
"the sum of all villainies" in the name of the blessed gospel of 
peace, charity and liberty ! The institution which was afterwards 
guilty of treason and rebellion against the government, thus began 
its work by insulting reason, stifling conscience and dethroning 
God in the souls of men. 

I know it is difficult by any use of words, to make the gener- 
«^tion which has come upon the stage since the war, realize the fear- 
ful sway and tyranny of the slave power in this country thirty years 
ago; and even the men who lived and acted then have almost for- 
gotten in these days of liberty, when slavery has been in its grave 
ten years, the full strength and prevalence of that fearful moral, 
political and social influence which then ruled supreme. Some 
there are, the few survivors of that little baud who composed the 
van-guard of the after swelling and triumphant hosts of freedom, 
who will perhaps remember the terrors of that collossal power 
against which they threw themselves with such uncalculating and 
heroic courage, in those dark days of the past. It was indeed, a 
time of moral and political paralysis. All true love of liberty, all 
genuine manhood, seemed expiring in the hearts of men. We 
know now that this was the thick, stifling atmosphere which pre- 
sages the earthquake and the hurricane. Only the war with its 
flashing thunderbolts, was able to rend and lift those murky 
clouds, and let in once more the pui'e light and air of freedom. 

It was against this dark institution of slavery, this gigantic 
public enemy, that Mr. Sumxeu waged unrelenting, unceasing 
war. Slaveiy had become the nation's master. Its firm grasp 
upon the nation's throat must be shaken off or the nation would 
die. SumNer entered upon the stage in the days of expedients 
and compromises. The national capital was then, as it long had 
been before, the very fortress and citadel of oppression. The hall:* 
of Congress had long resounded to the apotheosis of slavery. Here 
his public career as a statesman commenced, — here iu the very 
face of the enemy he begau his work. He became the champion 



EULOGY. 13 

of imperiled freedom and the unrelenting foe of compromise. 
"Freedom Natioj^al— Slavery Sectional" — "No Compromlse 
WITH Slavery" — these were his watchwords. 

THE CHAMPION^ OF AX IDEA IX STATESMANSHIP. 

Charles Sumner thus became the advocate and champion of 
an idea, a principle in statesmanship. It has often been said of him 
since, by way of criticism, that he was not a practical statesman ; 
that he was not expert and crafty in the details of legislation. Let 
this be fully admitted and it falls far short of proving that Mr. 
Sumner was not a statesman of the best and highest type. 

For certainly it must be the noblest business of a statesman 
to deal with principles and ideas, and he must be greatest in the 
service of the State who builds his superstructure upon these eter- 
nal foundations. I have no patience with that super-practical 
view of statesmanship which insists that he only is a statesman 
who shows aptitude and skill in the measures and policies of to- 
day. Undoubtedly, the affairs of to-day must be attended to, but 
they are not necessarily the most important. Statesmanship, like 
every other human interest, has its to-morrows ; and these must be 
provided for. The rule here holds good in greater things as it 
does in lesser. The wise man builds his house upon a rock and 
makes careful provision for the future. So the wise statesman 
seeks to lay the beams of the national edifice on the solid and en- 
during foundations of eternal right and justice, and to provide 
wise rule for all after generations. 

NOT A VISIONARY AND IMPRACTICABLE STATESMAN. 

It is in this larger sense that I claim the highest meed of states- 
manship for Charles Sumner. He did great and far-reaching 
work. At the same time I confidently assert that he was a careful 
and sound legislator upon minor questions of state, evincing always 
an excellent judgment in what have been called practical, every-day 
affairs. I know the popular impression is the other way, but the 
popular impression has never been right upon this point. He was 
never wild or visionary. In the affair of the Trent he showed the 
highest prudence of diplomacy; he was sound always upon the 
finances. These instances are notable, but they are not the only 
ones that might be triven to show that Mr. Sumner was not a rash 



14 EULOGY. 

or imprudent public man. But it was in the greater questions of 
State, where men did not see as far and as clearly as he, that he 
was called visionary and impracticable. 

True, it was Mr. Sumner's great work and distinction as a 
statesman to advocate an idea, a principle in government, rather 
than to manage a party or provide for the annual budget. But his 
idea was a grand one, his principle was an immortal one, and its 
effects on men and governments most powerful and practical. An 
idealist, men say. But what was his idea ? Liberty, that great 
flame which has fired the hearts of men in all lands and ages; the 
quenchless inspiration of the heroes and martyrs of history; Lib- 
erty, the glory and felicity of nations which enjoy it, the undying 
aspiration of nations and peoples which seek after it. The best 
blood of the centuries has reddened field and scaffold for it ; the 
most eloquent voices of the ages have pleaded in immortal words 
for this greatest boon of humanity. And is it not the best work of 
a statesman to seek to crystalize this beneficent principle into gov- 
ernment, and to make it the sure possession of posterity ? 

THE CHARGE THAT HE WAS JSTOT A PRACTICAL STATESMAN 
DENIED — AN APPEAL TO THE RECORD. 

The claim which I make here for Mr. Sumner's .-tatesmanship 
is justified by the great and beneficent results which have flowed 
from it. Not a practical statesman ! Whose work has been more 
grandly practical than his ? Look at it. Four millions of slaves 
emancipated and made freemen and citizens of the Republic. What 
could be more practical to them ? The Republic itself at last rid 
of its greatest curse and most dangerous enemy ; what could be 
more practical to it and to us ? Liberty, Citizenship, Enfranchise- 
ment and Civil Rights; National Salvation and National Honor, — 
these are intensely practical things, and these are the objects which 
Mr. Sumner's statesmanship compassed. 

But it is said that he was impracticable. If by this it is meant 
that he was unmanageable by mere politicians and could not be 
induced to surrender principle for party, it is undoubtedly true. 
But if it be intended by this to say that as a statesman he proposed 
and advocated measures that could not be practically realized, or 
which were opjDOsed to the true good of the country, then I confi- 



I 



EULOGY. 15 

dently deny the charge and appeal to the facts to disprove it. 
What Mr. Sumkeii proposed and advocated in the Senate of the 
United States is well known to all the world. Let us look a monent 
at the record. 

HIS STATESMANSHIP BEFORE THE WAR. 

Take the questions which grew out of slavery and the war as 
the tests in this matter, for it was in these that he was said to be 
impracticable. His first speech in the Senate was in opposition to 
the fugitive slave law. He denounced it as unconstitutional, im- 
politic and inhuman. His vote was recorded against it. Was he 
not right in this? What man now would have the country go back 
and stand upon the fugitive slave law ? Millard Fillmore signed 
that bill as President, and it was a millstone aiboxit his neck forever 
after. AVhich was right, the President or the Senator? 

Then, Mr. Sumner opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compro- 
mise and the I«Iobraska bill, voting and protesting in some of his 
most powerful speeches against those ill-starred measures. AVho 
questions now that it would have been better for the country and 
its j)eace to have left the landmark of freedom undisturbed ? 
Stephen A. Douglass made here the mistake of his life ; a mistake 
which cost him the presidency. 

Next, Mr. Sumner voted and protested against the spread of 
slavery into the Territories, and lifted up his voice in one of his 
most memorable utterances in denunciation of the " Crime against 
Kansas," — the daring attempt of slavery propagandists to plant 
slavery in that Territory by fraud and violence. Was he not right 
here ? Let the memory of Franklin Pierce, whose administration 
was guilty of complicity in the crime, answer. 

Then, in 1860, Mr. Sumner, gathering all his learning, ability 
and eloquence, from his high place in the Senate, arraigned the 
turbulent and threatening institution in that terrible indictment 
contained in his speech, entitled, " The Barbarism of Slavery." 
Here certainly he needs no vindication. All the world knows now 
that slavery was a relic of barbarism, and the very next year it 
added to its other crimes the greatest of all, and lighted the torch 
of civil war. 

HIS RECORD DURING THE WAR. 

When the war was impending, Mr. Summer opposed the grant- 



16 EULOGY. 

ing of the last concessions which slavery demanded of the North as 
the price of peace. He refused to compromise, and demanded that 
the government assert its just authority. Right again, clearly 
right. Concession would have been national humiliation, and peace 
thus purchased would have been national shame. Let the dishon- 
ored memory of James Buchanan, loaded dowu with the record of 
his criminal weakness, in a great crisis which demanded the will 
and courage of a man, testify to the clear, courageous and lofty 
statesmanship of Charles Sumner, at this supreme moment of our 
history. 

When the war came, Mr. Sumner was the first among our 
statesmen to urge the policy of emancipation. The policy was 
afterwards adopted, it is true, but not until hundreds of thousands 
of precious lives had been sacrificed, and hundreds of millions of 
treasure had been sunk. History, which has already vindicated 
the policy will, I think, write it down also, that Mr. Sumner was 
nearest right in point of time. 

MR, SUMNER AND RECONSTRLXTION. 

Then, after the war, followed the work of reconstruction. 
Mr, Sumner was again the first among all our statesmen to com- 
prehend the full significance of the revolution which the war had 
effected and the great political changes which it had made neces- 
sary. He demanded and advocated for the emancipated millions, 
those measures which he denominated the "irreversible guaran- 
tees of freedom" — Citizenship, Enfranchisement, Civil Rights; 
these were the outlines of his policy. 

I have not the time to go into the details here, as I would 
like; but the history is recent, and I simply call your attention to 
the f;ict that in every step of this policy of reconstruction 
and legislative dealing with the emancipated race, Ma, Sumner 
led the way, reluctantly followed, a year behind, by a Senate and 
Congress which continually denounced him as "impracticable.' 
Year by year, the spectacle was presented of Mr. Sumner, at the 
opening of Congress, proposing measures which after being duly 
criticised and condemned as unreasonable and impracticable, 
were voted down by the majority only to be adopted at the next 
session or by the next Congres"^, when the wise and tireless cham- 



EULOGY. 17 

pion had set his stakes still further ahead to be again denounced 
and again followed. 

CRUEL DELAY OF HIS CIVIL RIGHTS BILL BY THE "PRACTICAL" 
STATESMEN. 

It is a singular history and a sad commentary on what is 
called practical statesmanship. We spent ten years in this work 
of reconstruction and in adopting measures which Mr. Sumner 
proposed at the outset, and which are now clearly seeo to have 
been necessary^ Saddest of all, the jealousy and opposition of 
these laggards who are called "practical" statesmen finally cheated 
Mr. Sumner of what would have been the extreme felicity of his 
life. Even his great Civil Rights bill, the crowning measure of 
reconstruction and of his glorious career as a statesman, must be 
postponed by them until after his death. Oh, cruel delay ! The 
death agony was made more intense by the thought, and this drew 
from the dying statesman that pathetic injunction to his friend, 
which so touched millions of hearts. How would that noble soul 
have thrilled with joy at the completion of the great work ! The 
grand old warrior of Freedom could then have loosed his helmet, 
unbuckled his armor, and tasted the sweets of victory, on the field 
where he had fought so long. 

What need that I should say more to prove that the charge, so 
often repeated, that Mr. Sumner was an impracticable and vision- 
ary statesman, is not founded in the truth of history. Happy 
would it have been for the government and the people if all our 
statesmen and public men had been as "practical" as he, and had 
followed his example and had recorded their votes and influence 
with him on these great questions to which I have refei'red. In 
every instance he is proved to have been right, and the practical 
statesmen to have been wrong. Thus time and history vindicate 
the truth and its champions. The " practical" statesmen are put 
to shame, their quibbling evasions and hollow compromises are 
exposed and overthrown, and the man who stood upon uncompro- 
mising truth is crowned with immortal honor, and again is vindi- 
cated in these greater things the old and homely maxim, "honesty 
is the best policy." 

SAN DOMINGO AND THE BATTLE-FLAG RESOLUTIONS. 

But I ought not to omit, in this connection, to speak of two 



18 EULOGY. 

important public questions where Mr. Sumner's action subjected 
him, at the time, to wide-spread misapprehension and denunciation. 
I allude to the San Domingo annexation scheme and the battle-flag 
resolution. 

His action on the first of these questions was taken in opposi- 
tion to the administration of his own party, and subjected him to 
great personal annoyance and insult, finally leading to ap open 
rupture with the President and a sundering of his party relations. 
Yet here he was cleai-ly right, and his conduct in courageously 
opposing that ill-starred project was a signal service to his country, 
and worthy the highest admiration. For once he carried the coun- 
try with him and defeated the measure. This certainly was 
" practical" statesmanship. 

His battle-flag resolution was least understood of all his public 
acts, at the time, and subjected him to a perfect tempest of denun- 
ciation from the political friends of a life time. Kven Massachusetts 
made haste to visit her public censure upon the head of her great, 
true son as he sat there in his darkened chamber at Washington, 
bowed with disease and suffering. It is the saddest story in Mr. 
Sumner's life, and the blow was more cruel than that of Preston 
Brooks. The victim suffered in a silence that was heroic and 
grand. * Thank Grod, the madness and misconception were only 
temporary. When reason returned, it was seen that the statesman 
was right and the people were wrong. Now, in all the land, the 
man could hardly be found to stand up and oppose the spirit and 
policy of Mr. Sumner's resolution. Seldom is a vindication so 
speedy and overwhelming, and this is the last instance which I 
need to give of the practical wisdom of Charles Sumner's 
statesmanship. 

" By their fruits ye shall know them " is a rule of the highest 
wisdom and authority, and as applicable to statesmen as to other 
men. Tried by this standard, Mr. Sumner is exalted among 
statesmen. A striking instance and contrast in our own history 
is in point. 

SUMNER AND CALHOUN. 

A year before Charles Sumner's election to the Senate^ 
John C. Calhoun died at Washington, after a long and distin- 



EULOGY. 19 

guished careei' in the councils of the nation. Like Sumner he 
died a Senator and the greatest from his section. These two men 
will stand in our history as the fittest and ablest representatives 
of the North and the South, of Freedom and Slavery. They 
were both men of strong will, of unblemished private life and 
of commanding talents. As the sun of the great South Carolinian 
set, that of the Northern statesman arose. Massachusetts and 
South Carolina, the States that " shoulder to shoulder went through 
the revolution and felt the strong arm of Washington lean on 
them for support," furnished these two statesmen to the Union. 
As Slavery and the South found in Calhoun their ablest and most 
tireless senatorial advocate and statesman, so Freedom and the 
North at last had in Sumner, in the same great arena, their most 
persistent and powerful champion. The one spent his life and his 
great talents defending human bondage and warring upon Free- 
dom; the other as freely gave his great acquirements and noble 
faculties to the cause of freedom amd the slave. 

Behold now how time and history have dealt with the two 
champions and the opposing systems which they defended. The 
doctrines of Calhoun ripened into secession nnd civil war to 
overthrow the government; those of Sumner into emancipation, 
a restored Union and civil rights to all. The grim spirits of slav- 
ery and treason, of war and bloodshed, rise up at the name of 
Calhoun; upon the memory of Sumner Freedom and white-winged 
Peace shed their sweetest benedictions, and millions of broken fet- 
ters are his trophies of victory. 

MR. SUMNTER AS AN ORATOR. 

Plutarch, in comparing the two great orators of antiquity, 
says: "it is necessary, indeed, for a statesman to have the advan- 
tage of eloquence." This advantage Mr. Sumner possessed in a 
very eminent degree. He was indeed an orator of the classic type 
and of the most massive kind. Few, if any, modern parliamentary 
speakers have excelled him. Nature had done much for him in 
this respect. His personal presence was noble and commanding, 
and his voice, a deep and mellow bass, was sonorous and far-re- 
sounding. His temperament was not electrical, and hence he was 
never fiery or rapid in delivery, but spoke with judicial gravity 



\ 



20 EULOGY, 

with full articulation and with measured, impressive periods. He 
had the majesty and weight of manner which give such dignity to 
senatorial eloquence. It is a singular co-incidence that in these 
respects he more nearly resembled his great predecessor in the 
Senate, Daniel Webster, than any other modern orator. 

His style partook of the qualities of his moral nature and of 
his personal presence. It was lofty in thought and purpose and 
stately in utterance. Not always flexible and never diffuse ; some- 
times, indeed, seeming stiff and lacking in euphony, it was always 
pitched upon a lofty key, and rose in vohime and grandeur to the 
close. Here he most resembled Milton, to whom, indeed, there was 
still further resemblance in the grave and majestic expression of 
countenance, in vast and affluent scholarship, in lofty and severe 
integrity of life, and in unswerving devotion to the rights of man. 
It was a style admirably suited to the great themes of State which 
it became his mission to discuss. He was the advocate of Liberty, 
Humanity, Justice and Nationality, and he needed the highest 
dignity and power of speech to plead for these. 

Mr. Sumker was not distinguished or dextei'ous in off-hand 
debate, but chose rather to advocate or oppose measures in full and 
well considered speeches. In this respect he was peculiar and, I 
think, unapproachable by any other statesman or orator we have 
ever had. His great speeches were so thoroughly prepared that 
they were exhaustive of the question and literally unanswerable. 
History, literature, learning, logic and eloquence were gathered 
with a mighty sweep from far and near, and molded and welded in 
a great volume of argument, demonstration and persuasion which 
was absolutely overwhelming and irresistible. No modern orator 
ever excelled him in this cumulative power. It is a singular fact 
that while his greatest senatorial efforts always provoked fierce 
opposition aud called forth unmeasured personal denunciation, they 
were never answered. The orator was assailed with angry words, 
and even personal violence, but his speech was not replied to. 
And this was simply for the reason that it could not be replied to. 
An argument, founded on the truths of nature and history, with 
the adjuncts of all reason, learning and literature to support and 
fortify it, and fused and kindled by a sublime moral enthusiasm into 



EULOGY. 21 

a blaze of majestic eloquence, it was a power which could not be 
resisted in kind. 

SUMNER AND EDMUND BURKE. 

As a parliamentary orator, besides Webster, Mr. Sumner 
nearest resembled Edmund Burke. The men were not unlike in 
many respects, and the subjects upon which they spoke were not 
altogether dissimilar. Both had great resources of statesmanship, 
learning and eloquence; both spoke upon full preparation and 
exhaustively, and both denounced great public wrongs. Sumner 
excelled Burke in delivery as much as he was excelled by the latter 
in style, which, for purity and richness of language, and imperial 
sweep of imagination, is still the study of rhetoricians and the , , 
model of statesmen. The speech of Burke in the British House of 
Lords, against the oppressor of India, and the speech of Sumner 
in the American Senate, on the Barbarism of Slavery, are the two 
most remarkable and powerful philipics in the English language, 
and ihey will be read and ranked in times to come with their great 
originals, the orations of Cicero against Cataline and Verres, and 
of Demosthenes against Phillip. As Edmund Burke is the orna- 
ment and glory of English statesmanship and eloquence, so, I 
think, will Charles Sumner hereafter be of American, for he had 
the high themes and the great purpose which will give his elo- 
quence immortality. 

MR. SUMNER NOT A POPULAR FAVORITE. 

Mr. Sumner was never, in his life time, a popular public man. j 
He had none of the arts of the demagogue, and his aims were 
always high above the multitude. It is one of the penalties of real 
greatness to be misunderstood and opposed. He was a statesman 
who followed the truth with a martyr's devotion, and he frequently 
received the martyr's reward. Men of lofty aims and uncompro- 
mising ways always make enemies. It will not answer to say that 
this is their fault. The multitude in all ages have stoned their 
prophets and crucified their benefactors. Even the noblest and 
greatest being that ever appeared in human form was surrounded 
at every step of his beneficent mission by enemies, who finally took 
his life. Mr. Sumner never asked favors of the people, and always 
opposed them when they were wrong. In this, of course, he was 



\ del 



Tl EULOGY. 

their truest friend, because he served their best interests. For 
many years the purest and greatest of our statesmen, there was no 
time when his name could have commanded any considerable or 
formidable support for President, either in his party or before the 
people. Not that the country did not need such men as he was for 
that office, but his great, pure life was a constant rebuke to the 
average smallness and meanness of politicians, and his courageous 
denunciation of popular wrongs had offended the easy-going com- 
placency of the people. But happily, he never sought the Presi- 
dency, like so many of our public men, and he therefore suffered 
no disappointment. 

I do not mean to say that a popular statesman or public man 
is always or necessarily unworthy. Notable instances in our own 
history would prove the contrary. A good man may represent or 
reflect the people in their best and highest moods and be popular 
with them, while at the same time he serves his country and se- 
cures an honorable name in history. In this way Lincoln was 
popular, because, a man of the people himself, he caught their in- 
spiration and reflected their will at a great crisis, when they were 
at the white moral heat of revolution. But Sumnkr led the way 
to national reform through popular opposition, prejudice and 
clamor, and spent his life in the advocacy of unpopular causes and 
ideas. Hence he could never be a favorite with the masses. Clay 
and Douglas were great party leaders and were idolized by their 
followers. They marshalled their forces like skillful generals and 
fought the battles of their day on the field of national politics. But 
they took the people as they found them, and left them little bet- 
ter. Sumner, on the contrary, was not a politician or the leader 
of a party, but the bold proclaimer and champion of unpopular 
and unwelcome political truths, and he finally left the people, who 
reluctantly followed him, upoii a higher plane of political know- 
ledge, equality and liberty. 

HIS ABILITIES OF THE FIRST ORDER. 

The natural endowments of Mr. Sumner were large, and even 
in this respect, I think he was entitled to rank in the first order of 
statesmen. If he had not the vast brain and the intellectual afflu- 
nce of W ebster, he nevertheless was gifted by nature with a mind 



EULOGY. 23 

of uncommon strength, having the capacity for continued labor 
and acquisition and the blended moral and intellectual insight to 
direct it to great and noble achiev^ement. In learning, whether 
useful or ornamental, in the knowledge of history and literature, 
so important to a statesman, he greatly excelled Webster, while in 
moral character and purpose he rose far above him. It is difficult 
to separate and lay apart the qualities of such a mind as Mr. Sum- 
ner's, and to say how much was natural endowment and how 
much was acquired, for the very capacity to acquire and the moral 
inspiration to guide and direct the intellectual effort were equally 
the original gifts of nature. It is, therefore, useless to speculate 
in a matter of this kind. Enough that the full assemblage 't>l^ 
of qualities and graces which made up the entire of Mr. Sumner's 
moral and intellectual character were ample to entitle him to rank 
in the first order of publicists and statesmen. Washington, in 
spite of the celebrated aphorism of Henry Lee, has been excelled 
in war and peace alike, but never, perhaps, in the wonderful poise 
and balance of faculties which have made him one of the few ro- 
mantic and legendary hei'oes of history. 

Men of conspicuous lives, who play important parts upon the 
world's stage, whether warriors, rulers or statesmen, must be 
judged by what they do and what they are, and the measure of 
their greatness must be the impression which their work and influ- 
ence makes upon their times, their nation and the world. Tried 
by this standard Charles Sumner must be admitted into the im- 
mortal company of the world's great men. He was great as a 
scholar, orator and statesman, and exceptionally great in the moral 
qualities which he brought to statesmanship. History will be 
searched in vain to find another statesman who so steadily, un- 
swervingly and consistently devoted his public life to truth, justice 
and freedom, and who sought with such zeal and courage to bring 
the Sermon on the Mount into the field of legislation and govern- 
ment. He was called "the Senator with a conscience," a term 
which truly described him while it indicated the contrast between 
him and so many other of our public men. Another title which 
in his last years, especially, he bore unquestioned, was that of 
*'The Great Senator." How much that expresses, and how true it 
was! He towered intellectually above the dull commonplace of 



24 EULOGY. 

the Senate in these later, degenerate days, like the lofty peak of 
Teneriffe; or like Mont Blanc in the whiteness and majesty of his 
character. 

HIS MORAL GREATNESS. 

It is. indeed, in the moral greatness of his life that Charles 
Sumner surpasses all our statesmen. This will constitute his 
chief distinction in history, for other statesmen have been learned, 
able and eloquent, but not one of all the great names our country 
can boast has so exalted statesmanship above the mere policies and 
expedients of to-day into the grand, clear region of eternal and 
immortal principles. Liberty and the equality of all men before 
the law — these were his guiding stars and the rule of his life. 

HIS FIRMNESS AND CONSTANCY. 

From these lofty purposes nothing could tempt him, nothing 
could swerve him. In the long anti-slavery struggle, his firmness 
and constancy never changed. What Martin Luther was at the 
Diet of Worms Charles Sumner was, three hundred years later, 
in the American Congress. He stood as bravely and firmly for 
personal and political liberty as Luther did for liberty of conscience. 
Wendell Phillips once said that John Quincy Adams carried Ply- 
mouth Rock to Washington. This was even truer of SuMNEB. A 
son of the Puritans himself, he stood for the truth as firm set and 
unshaken as Plymouth Rock, always and everywhere. When the 
hearts of other men grewfaint in the long contest, when the clouds 
gathered and the heavens were dark above them and there was 
talk of compromise or surrender, the great leader never faltered 
or turned aside but kept straight on, his face to the foe, and his 
clarion voice ringing out words of lofty encouragement. He was 
indeed, 

"Constant as the Northern Star, 
Of whose true-fixed and resting quality 
There is no fellow in the firmament." 

HIS INTEGRITY. 

Need I speak of his integrity? In an age of venality in poli- 
tics and of corruption among public men, he stood so conspicuously 
white in his character that no breath of suspicion, even, ever for a 
moment rested upon his name. What praise was that ! All around 



EULOGY. 25 

him in these few, sad years which have gone, were the wrecks of 
character, his fellows in the public service broken, dishonored and 
disgraced, while he stood like a rock^in the midst of the sea, giving 
his countrymen assurance still that all honor and integrity were 
not gone from the high places of the Republic. Alas, that he is 
now gone from the place where his example is so much needed ! 

HIS MORAL COURAGE. 

And then, what lofty moral courage he had ! Here he was sub- 
lime. "We have seen that in his young manhood he put all the 
prospects of his life and of his ambition in peril for the cause of 
the slave. This was but the beginning, the dedication to a work 
which demanded of [him ever after to face opposition, obloquy, 
slander, danger and death itself Oh! it has been easy in these 
recent years to be anti-slavery, to go with the majority, to swim 
with the tide, when the North^as been all aroused, and when anti- 
slavery has been the passport to public office and public favor. 
But think what it was in the dark days when Charles Sumner 
put on his armor and went forth like David against Goliath, to 
battle against the colossal power of Slavery. 

Nor was it always or alone that he had enemies to face, as he 
did in the first half of his public life. In these later years he fre- 
quently had to brave the opposition and frowns of friends. To a 
lofty and sensitive soul this is the hardest of all. But even this 
could not daunt him. He met their cruel wrong and ingratitude 
as he had the rage of enemies. 

I have no language to express my admiration for such courage 
as Charles Sumner displayed throughout his entire public 
career. It was as rare as it was grand and heroic. It was the chiv- 
alry of statesmanship. The courage of war and the battle field 
pales before it. What is mere physical bravery in comparison ! 
To charge on serried lines or flaming batteries, in the shock and 
tury of battle, when the blood is mounting and hot with the fiery 
contagion of thousands all around, and the splendid intoxication 
of war drowns all thought of danger — this is the physical courage 
of the soldier, which the world in all ages has admired and applaud- 
ed. But to stand alone, if need be, against the world, for a cause 
or an idea, to endure the sneers, the scorn and the scoflfe of men ; 



26 EULOGY. 

to put reputation, character, prospects all at hazard for a principle 
—this is moral courage, this is courage which is G-odlike aiui 
sublime ! 

HIS DEATH— THE UXIVERSAL TRIBUTE — WHO SHALL TAKE 
HIS PLACE ? 

The grand old patriot and statesman is at rest now. No more 
strife and opposition, no more weariness and pain, no more cruel 
wrong and ingratitude. He died as he had lived. There was no 
weakness, no obscuration of intellect, no unmanly fear of death. 
His sun went down like the full orb of day, with no clouds about 
its setting. How fitting here the noble passage from Milton : 

"Nothing 18 here for tears, nothing to wail 
Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, 
Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair 
And what may quiet us in a death so noble." 

All men honor his memory. The same fickle and ungrateful 
people who kill their prophets, build sepulchres and monuments to 
them after they are dead. And s© in all the land, as in the whole 
wide circuit of civilization, nothing but good is said of the great 
Senator. All races and sections speak with the same voice. Next 
to the noble tribute of that brilliant Senator who was the great 
man's friend and associate, and who, though of foreign birth, 
speaks our language with such marvelous fluency and grace, there 
have been laid upon the statesman's bier no finer offerings than 
from those two men of the South, one the representative of the 
emancipated slave, the other of the once lordly slave master. 
Happy coincidence ! Auspicious omen ! Thus the wide gap closes 
between master and slave, between North aiid South; thus is the 
problem of statesmanship solved, and thus does a great life-work 
for common country and common humanity meet with its sure and 
glorious reward. 

Thank God, there is appreciation and honor yet in America 
for a great, true man. As truly now can it be said as when Daniel 
Web>ter said it of Adams and Jefferson, that " The tears which are 
shed and the honors which are paid when the defenders of the 
Republic die, give hope that the Republic itself may be immortal." 
Well may the people mourn. Just as we are approaching our hun- 



dreth national anniversary, our greatest and noblest statesman, the 
most august and commanding presence in our national councils is 
removed. Where shall we look for his like ? The strong tower is, 
indeed, fallen. As our eyes sweep enquiringly around the politi- 
cal horizon, we see no one to take his place. And well may Mas- 
sachusetts, once the proud mother of so many statesmen, weep for 
her buried greatness. Her long and illustrious line in the national 
Senate ends with him, her purest and her greatest, the light and 
glory of whose splendid name and services only make more palpa- 
ble and dark the void which is left. 

HIS PLACE IN HISTORY. 

Charles Sumxer's place in history is secure. Allied to im- 
mortal principles, to conscience and to Grod, his fame will live as 
long as the records of civilization shall endure. Liberty will en- 
roll him with her immortal advocates and defenders; Eloquence 
will point to him as one of her noblest orators, and Humanity will 
enshrine him with her great benefactors. He will be the hero 
statesman ; and as the noble knight of Liberty he will ride down 
the centuries. For he went forth with more than knightly cour- 
age, not to rescue from heathen profanation the earthly sepulchre 
where the Lord's body lay, but to save from the profaner hands of 
tyrannyand oppression millions of human souls in which the 
Lord's spirit now dwells. 

As the statesman who led in the great effort which finally rid 
the Republic of the New World from the curse of African slavery 
he will keep company in history with Washington the founder 
and Lincoln the liberator; and in after ages when accurate histor- 
ical narrative begins to blend with legend and tradition, a halo will 
surround his name like that which glorifies the names of Sidney 
and Hampden, of Bayard and Bozzaris and other illustrious de- 
fenders and martyrs of country and liberty. Thus do such lofty 
souls become the guardian angels of their country as the tradition- 
ary fame of William Tell hovers like a protecting aegis above the 
mountains of Switzerland. And such is the transfiguration which 
God vouchsafes to his great ones who help to lift humanity up to 
knowledge, to liberty and to Him. 



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